Willis receives Navy offer, commits

Richard M. Stover

02/02/2015

After a big junior season at Creekside High School In Jacksonville, Fla., Isaac Willis was expecting his to sky-rocket. It very well may have but the 6-foot-1, 275-pound offensive tackle suffered a torn meniscus the second week of summer practice which sidelined him the majority of his senior season.

The story, however, has a good ending for Willis as he was offered and committed to the United State Naval Academy on February 1st during an official visit to campus. He spoke with GoMids.com Sunday evening shortly after returning home from his visit.

"I was hearing from a lot of schools before the injury, but the contact kept dropping off," said Isaac Willis. "The last school to show interest was Florida Tech, but they stopped talking to me a few weeks ago. I was thinking about going the JuCo route to build the interest back up and get some more D-1 looks.

"Kind of out of the blue, Navy contacted me and said there were some prospects who where on their board who may be dropping off and if they did I was next in line to receive an offer. I decided to go for an official visit this weekend to check it out.

"When I arrived (in Annapolis), it was very different than what I was expecting. I thought that I'd see the Midshipmen marching in a straight line and the place would feel almost like a prison. It was nothing like that. I really fell in love with the Academy. They explained to me all about the military stuff. I thought the students looked great in their uniforms. I wanted the academy challenge, the football challenge, and also the challenge of military service. The coaching staff is great. They're about turning us into men and getting us ready to compete against top D-1 competition. They extended the offer while I was there and I accepted it."

Although Willis played sparingly this season (he was only in on 17 snaps from the line of scrimmage), he has developed a reputation as an aggressive run blocker in his first two years as a starter in Florida Class 6A, something that impressed the Navy offensive line coaches.

"A few things they said in our conversation was that they really like that I'm explosive blocker. They noticed, on my film, how I can get up the field and pancake people, which is an important thing to be able to do in the triple option. They like my flexibility. They said the explosiveness I show in the hips is a great thing to have. They were just joking around, but said they could see me possibly playing the d-line as a nose guard, so we'll see what happens."

On the Annapolis visit, Willis committed to his recruiter Ashley Ingram. He was joined by his uncle on the visit who drove in from Baltimore. Willis said he will begin at NAPS.